


A Very Roderigo Christmas

by impudent_strumpet, Masked_Man_2



Category: Othello - Shakespeare
Genre: A scary nightlight, Again, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Boners, Awkward Crush, Awkwardness, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Breaking and Entering, Canon Het Relationship, Christmas, Christmas Crack, Christmas Party, Christmas Presents, Christmas Shopping, Christmas Special, Christmas Tree, Cold, Cold Weather, Comedy, Common Cold, Crack, Crash Landing, Cuddling & Snuggling, Disastrously awkward crush, Elf reference, Family, Home Alone reference, Home Invasion, Humor, Illnesses, In-Laws, It follows Roderigo wherever he goes, Jealousy, Lingerie, Literal Sleeping Together, Lots of it, Mall Santa - Freeform, Married Couple, Modern Era, More of them lol, Multi, Nightlight - Freeform, No Limoncellotina this time, Non-Consensual Cuddling, Presents, Roderigo is still terrible at them, Roderigo probably lost her at the wedding reception, Sequel, Shopping Malls, Sick Character, Slapstick, Sleeping Together, Stupidity, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Lust, Winter, Yet again Iago agrees to something insane while half-asleep, crackfic, newlyweds, santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-14 20:43:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13015761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impudent_strumpet/pseuds/impudent_strumpet, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masked_Man_2/pseuds/Masked_Man_2
Summary: You thought the wedding fic was crack? Oh, Masked_Man_2 and I are only just getting started >:)A little Christmas special we thought up XDHappy holidays!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is really short, I know, but the next will be longer! And a lot funnier XD XD XD

Roderigo had no idea what had happened.  
  
He had been shopping for Christmas presents and had found the  _perfect_  one for his lady love, may or may not have blown the rest of his money on these weird little Christmas nesting dolls, and was now caught in a snowstorm.  
  
It had just...happened out of nowhere when he left the store. He walked out, and suddenly he was swept up in a blustering storm of icy white. Every inch of him froze, the frigid snow practically seeping into his pores, and he couldn't see even two feet in front of him. He trudged through the quickly piling snow, searching desperately for any sign of his home.  
  
Except...well...Roderigo had a hard time finding his own home even in the absence of a snowstorm. So for a while he trudged along aimless and directionless, feeling it all hopeless and fruitless and that he might actually freeze out here and his lady would never realize his love for her and what a mistake she had made in marrying another.  
  
Then, after trying about five other houses that looked alike...  
  
He saw in the distance, through the sheet of white, a light in a very familiar home, complete with a Christmas tree by the window and two shadows inside.  
  
He breathed a sigh of relief and thanked every angel above, then ran out toward it, his flailing limbs kicking up snow as he did.  
  
The home of two friends of his who had just been wedded, Iago and Emilia.


	2. Chapter 2

"Oh my God. No."  
  
Iago had said this the very moment he had opened the door to see Roderigo.  
  
"Pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaase!" Roderigo begged, his voice congested and nasal now that his nose had started to run -- well, _pour_ \-- thanks to the snowstorm.  
  
"No," Iago said again. "Go on home. The storm's not that bad, and I'm sure it'll let up soon."  
  
"Buh Iago, yuh're muh _friiiieeeeend!_ Pliss! I'm gonnuh friz out here!" He was really going to need some cold medicine.  
  
Iago wouldn't budge. "For the last time, no. Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal."  
  
With that, he shut the door in Roderigo's face with a force that sent him stumbling down the steps. As he gathered his bags and stood, Roderigo knew he had to get in somehow, or else he could die out here.  
  
He tried the door, but it was locked, of course. The windows?  
  
He peeped through one, but Iago was seated right beside it, and immediately turned and glared at Roderigo, who shrank away. The others in the front of the house weren't budging, either locked or frozen shut, as they felt cold as the surface of an icy pond and frost misted around their edges.  
  
That was when a huge icicle hanging from above came down and bonked Roderigo on the head, knocking him to the ground as something warm trickled down his scalp.  
  
When he recovered his balance and looked up, he saw it.  
  
The chimney.  
  
Perfect!  
  
He gathered some snow onto his face and headed for it. They would think he was Santa, then of course they'd let him in!  
  
It took several minutes, and a few slips, but he was up on the roof and down the chimney.  
  
It was pitch dark and narrow in there, and filled with soot. Roderigo tried not to cough. How did Santa and the Grinch do this?  
  
...  
  
Shoot. He was stuck.  
  
Shifting and squirming, he tried to free himself, but his rear and his stomach bulged and stuck to the sides of the chimney like glue. Eventually he was panicking.  
  
"Help!" he cried out. "Help!"  
  
"What the--" came a female voice, and the sound of footsteps.  
  
"I'm in heeyeh! I'm stuck!"  
  
"Uhhh..." The footsteps came closer.  
  
Very carefully, Emilia took the fire poker from beside the fireplace and slowly raised it up the chimney.  
  
"AAAHH! Aaaahh! No, no, not good!" came a congested male voice within. _"AAAAHHH!"_  
  
 ** _*THUD*_**  
  
The intruder crashed to the floor of the fireplace, black marks staining the carpet and a cloud of dark, ashy smoke arising in his wake that Emilia brushed away from her face. The intruder was not at all recognizable, so covered in soot, but intruder he was.  
  
Emilia screamed then and proceeded to bash him with the fire poker.  
  
"Ow! Ow!" he cried over and over as he raised his arm to shield himself, rolling around so Emilia would not land any serious or lethal blows.  
  
"What's going on?!" Iago rushed into the room. Upon spotting the intruder, he took the fire poker from Emilia and stepped protectively in front of her. "Who the hell are you?"  
  
"Iago! Is meeeeeee!" Roderigo wailed.  
  
Iago's shoulders dropped, the severity in his expression faded, and he seemed to deflate. "Oh. My God. Roderigo."  
  
With that, Iago dragged Roderigo to the door, opened it, gave him a swift kick to the rear that sent Roderigo flying to the curb, and slammed the door shut.


	3. Chapter 3

It was so cold out. The flakes of still-blizzarding snow pricked cruelly at Roderigo and the freezing wind seemed to sweep through him. For a few minutes he laid there faceplanted in the snow where he had landed when Iago quite literally kicked him out. But he really couldn't stand the cold. He wanted something hot to eat and friends to snuggle.  
  
He dared not try the chimney again, so he walked around to the back of the house to see if there were any openings there. He saw a few windows, most of which had the same frame of frost around them as the ones in the front, but there was one with a bright light in it, and fog completely covering it. When Roderigo touched it, though, he left a clean streak on the window, and it did not feel as cold. It actually felt more like water.  
  
He decided to try that one. With all the might he could summon, he pushed the window up until it opened, then climbed in. Yes, he was inside! And it was so warm in this room...  
  
He'd walked into a steamy bathroom to a naked Emilia.  
  
Well, not really. She had a towel around her, having just gotten out of the shower, but the moment she looked up, before Roderigo could react, she screamed, grabbed a bottle of shampoo, and threw it at his head, then ran out still screaming.  
  
Roderigo stumbled, and rubbed the spot on his head where she had bludgeoned him with the shampoo bottle. When he glanced up, though, he saw Iago standing in the doorway. He didn't think he had ever seen Iago look so stern.  
  
"No, wait! Pliss! I can explehn!"  
  
But Iago simply ignored his every word, marched him to the door, opened it, and kicked him out again.  


 

~

  
Some time passed. Minutes, hours, who knows. Roderigo ended up pressing himself to the window of every room, the one of what looked like Iago's and Emilia's bedroom, especially, yelling, "Pliss! Leh meh in!" over and over.  
  
Eventually Iago opened the window.  
  
" _Roderigo._ For the love of all that is holy, _get lost_."  
  
"I can't!" he cried. "I'll die out heyeh!"

  
"That'll be the end of my problems then." Iago started to shut the window, until Roderigo grabbed it.  
  
"Pliss! Leh meh in!" he begged.  
  
"Why should I do that?" Iago snapped.  
  
"Is Chrithsmessth!"  
  
"No, it's not. It's December twenty-second."  
  
"Dun yeh haff any Chrithsmessth speret? Dun yeh haff a har en soul?"  
  
" _No._ " Iago started to shut the window again, until Roderigo laid himself under it.  
  
" _PLISS!_ Pliss! Pliss," he begged.  
  
Iago looked at him for a minute. He was still dusted with soot, his face pale underneath, his nose streaming, his eyes wide with panic as if he were actually begging for his life, and his fingers dangerously close to frostbitten. Most importantly, though, Iago knew he wouldn't stop pestering him until he let him in.  
  
"Fine. Come on in." He begrudgingly opened the window wider to allow Roderigo in.  
  
"Thank yuh! Oh, bleth yuh!" Roderigo lunged at Iago as if to embrace him.  
  
" _Get off me._ " Iago abruptly stepped away. "Emilia, would you get him a sleeping bag?"  
  
"Sure," she said, sliding out of bed and disappearing to get it.


	4. Chapter 4

Roderigo was put in the sleeping bag, which, being a rich man, he had some complaints about, but none that he was going to voice, as it was this or the snow outside. He was grateful to Emilia for bringing him extra blankets and a steaming mug of hot cocoa, though.  
  
Just before she left, she tucked the blankets around him and gave him a kiss on the forehead that was definitely meant to be patronizing, then set up a nightlight in the shape of an elf. It wore a red and green suit with a matching hat that stood straight up and...well, the face of something between a troll doll and a tiki. It seemed to be both frowning and smiling maniacally, its mouth full of sharp teeth. Either way, it looked menacing. To Roderigo's horror, its eyes glowed bright red when Emilia plugged it in.  
  


~

"I finally found a use for that abomination of a nightlight you insisted on getting," Emilia told Iago after she had put Roderigo to bed.  
  
"I thought it was cool," Iago said.  
  
From beside the fireplace, Emilia then picked up a soot-covered gift bag stuffed with tissue paper that Roderigo had left behind in the wake of falling down the chimney.  
  
"What's that?" Iago asked.  
  
"I guess he had been out Christmas shopping. It's..." She read the tag. "Oh no. It's for Desdemona."  
  
"...Do I want to know?" Iago muttered.  
  
Emilia reached through the tissue paper, and pulled out...a red and white Santa-esque lingerie trimmed with white marabou and red ribbons.  
  
They were both silent for a beat.  
  
"That...looks...eerily similar to the gift for 'that special someone' in _Elf_ ," Emilia noted.  
  
"God," Iago sighed. "Othello's gonna flip his shit."  
  


~

  
Later that night, Roderigo couldn't sleep. The sleeping bag just wouldn't do, and...even when he turned his back to it, he could feel the nightlight's gaze on him. He was so scared he wanted to cry. He was so sure that any moment it would come alive and eat him.  
  
Carefully, quietly, he unzipped his sleeping bag, rose from it, and padded out of the room to Iago's and Emilia's.  
  
When he curled up against Iago in their bed, though, the latter immediately shot up and cringed away from him, causing Emilia to reach over and turn on the lamp on her nightstand.  
  
"Roderigo!" Iago gasped. "What do you think you're doing?!"  
  
"I couldn't thleep. Is uncomthable, an' the nightlight is scaring me. Pliss, can I thleep with you? _Pliss?_ "  
  
Iago was exhausted, and really didn't want to strike up an argument with Roderigo. Emilia would probably insist too on letting him stay, and Roderigo was annoying enough without that.  
  
So he let out the longest, most exasperated sigh of his entire life. " _Fine._ "  
  
"Thank you!" Roderigo bounced toward him like a little girl.  
  
"Shut up and go to sleep," was all Iago said.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops! It wasn't until Christmas Eve that I realized "I should get back to that Roderigo fic! ^^;"...but then I was kind of busy between then and now ^^; But here it is! :D

The next morning, Roderigo woke up before Iago and Emilia, relieved to find that his congestion from last night was all cleared up, but...oh no.  
  
As he lay curled up around Iago, he noticed...something wasn't right. Down there.  
  
He face flushing with embarrassment, he carefully removed himself from Iago and turned around. But, after a while of laying there, he grew bored...and hungry. Maybe there were cookies downstairs.  
  
He lifted the covers off of himself and padded across the room and down the hall as quietly as he could.  
  
He was still a bit tired, and it was dark in the living room, but he thought he could make out the end table where a plate of cookies sat last night. He took a few tentative steps towards it--  
  
 ** _CRASH._**  
  
That was when he lost his balance and fell into something that pricked his skin like a thousand needles, as the sound of the crash boomed through the house, along with the sound of glass breaking.  
  
Somehow Roderigo hadn't seen the silhouette of the Christmas tree right in front of him and had knocked it down.  
  
The light came on then, and when Roderigo looked up he saw Iago and Emilia standing in the doorway, along with an old woman Roderigo vaguely recognized from the wedding as Emilia's mother.  
  
"It's BAD LUCK!" she bellowed. "I KNEW IT!"  
  
First the embarrassment of what he had woken up with, then crashing into the Christmas tree, then being discovered, and now little pieces of glass stabbing into him...all made Roderigo tear up a little then.  
  


~

  
Emilia had given him a bath and fixed him breakfast after that, but Roderigo insisted on calling his parents and not troubling her and Iago any longer. Iago had let out a barely disguised sigh of relief then.  
  
"Hmm, maybe we were wrong about him," Emilia's mother remarked to her husband as she took a sip of coffee.  
  
"Let's see..." Roderigo squinted as he pushed the numbers on the keypad. "Nine...one...one."  
  
"Roderigo!" Emilia exclaimed then, grabbing the phone from him.  
  
"Sorry," she said into the receiver. "There's no emergency, nothing's wrong. We, uhh, took in a houseguest from the snowstorm last night and he's a little...confused. He was trying to call his parents. So sorry. Bye now."  
  
Then she hung up. "What were you doing?!" she hissed at Roderigo.  
  
"My mom told me to call her in case of an emergency! And my dad told me to call 911! So I thought that was my mom's number!" Roderigo explained.  
  
Emilia couldn't stop from facepalming. "Roderigo...no. That's not your mom's number. That's...the phone number for emergency services. As in, the police or the hospital."  
  
"... ... ... Oh," Roderigo said.  
  
So he had to stay with them a little longer. Emilia thought that might not be too bad...  
  
"Do you want another piece of toast, Roderigo?"  
  
"Yes, please, Mom."  
  
...Until then.


	6. Chapter 6

Not only had Iago waited until _the day before Christmas Eve_ to buy a present for Emilia's parents, Roderigo had managed to knock down the Christmas tree two more times, so Emilia knew what this meant.  
  
They were going to the mall.  
  
Which Iago had ostensibly taken to be punishment. Roderigo, meanwhile, had lit up with joy like...well, a kid on Christmas.  
  
Especially towards the end when he spotted a mall Santa.  
  
"It's Santa! Santa! Santa!" he'd squealed, pointing frantically and drawing the attention of multiple passersby who were undoubtedly wondering if this grown man actually still believed in Santa. "Mom, can I get my picture taken with him? PLEASE?"  
  
"Fine," Emilia sighed, really wishing Roderigo would stop calling her "mom."  
  
After all the shopping, and now at least another twenty minutes of waiting behind parents and children lined up to have their pictures taken with Santa, Iago was exhausted and more than a little irritated. So he wanted to make this quick when they were finally at the front of the line.  
  
"Alright, Roderigo," he said. "Run along now."  
  
"No!" Roderigo cried then.  
  
Iago looked at him. "What? But you wanted to...you were so excited about it." He put a hand on Roderigo's back to push him forward. "Go on now."  
  
"No!" Roderigo cowered next to him.  
  
"Roderigo, come on..." Iago sighed, reaching down for him.  
  
"NO!" Roderigo wrapped himself around Iago's leg and sobbed, fighting as Emilia pried him away and somehow managed to get him into Iago's arms, where he only screamed, cried, and flailed some more the whole way as Iago carried him to Santa and tried to lower him into Santa's lap. But he only clung to Iago and wouldn't let go.  
  


Exasperated, Iago finally gave up then and simply tossed Roderigo into the mall fountain.

~

  
It turned out, as Iago found out the next day, that the especially heavy piece Emilia had picked up from the mall was a childproof gate for the Christmas tree, prompting him to sigh with relief. At least now he wouldn't have to stand the tree back up again.

When they invited the rest of their family and friends over, Desdemona gasped when she saw the gate.

"Are you...are you pregnant?! You're having a baby already?!" she whisper-shouted in Emilia's ear. "Is it--"

" _It's for Roderigo_ ," Emilia hissed back, earning an even more perplexed look from Desdemona.

She and Iago managed to be content with it, though, both thinking it the best purchase they had made since their wedding. They imagined this would not be the first Christmas that Roderigo crashed, and half their ornaments had suffered for it. This was the best way they could think of to preserve the other half. Roderigo stumbled around the gate a few times, of course, but the tree never budged.

They managed, too, to finally get a hold of Roderigo's parents and arrange for him to be picked up. So they could spend Christmas Eve at least, and then Christmas Day, in peace, even now as Roderigo screamed and wailed as some couples' children climbed all over him. Even later when everyone opened the presents they had gifted each other and he kept chanting obnoxiously, "PRESENT TIME! PRESENT TIME!" Even shortly after that when Desdemona opened Roderigo's present and a hush fell over the room, Desdemona staring at it in confusion and embarrassment, Roderigo innocently waiting for her to say it was the perfect gift and she loved it, and Othello clearly silently fuming with rage.

It had been a very Roderigo Christmas.


End file.
